Coming in 2018: Nordstrom New York City

Nordstrom never rushes things. It moves forward slowly, thoughtfully and creatively. And when the company makes a decision, observers tend to nod their heads and say: “Hey, that’s a good idea.”

A week ago, in a news conference announcing the acquisition of a West Side Manhattan Nordstrom store site for $102.5 million, Peter Nordstrom said: “We’ve had the intention and the drive, gosh, probably for the last 25 years to try to be here. We fully expect this to be our most successful store.”

Nordstrom paid the $102.5 million to Extell Development for the land and development rights. Observers say that it is essentially a down payment for the delivery of a store.

Come 2018, Nordstrom’s Manhattan address will be 225 W. 57th Street, not far from Carnegie Hall and Time Warner Center, which, of course, houses the 53 shops and nine restaurants of The Shops at Columbus Circle — sales per sq. ft. $1,600.

Now The Shops will have Nordstrom and Nordstrom will have The Shops to help draw customers.

The new store will span 285,000 sq. ft. on seven floors of an 88-story tower with residential condominiums and a hotel on the upper floors.

Some news reports have noted that Nordstrom filed public documents last week that said the retail space would be 175,000 sq. ft. Reports from last year used the 285,000-sq.-ft. number so the real footprint hasn’t been settled on just yet.

What has been worked out is that Nordstrom’s Manhattan flagship store will rise 1,550 ft. The Empire State Building is 1,454 ft. tall, including its antenna.

So Nordstrom can say that its New York City store resides in one of the world’s tallest buildings.